Time of the Hawk
by coonskin
Summary: Two missing scenes that struck me as I watched a rerun of this episode.


Colonel Wilma Deering took a moment before reaching for the communications console to steady her hands. She could feel them trembling slightly.

She cleared her throat and hit the button. "Searcher, this is Colonel Deering."

Admiral Asimov's face appeared at once on the vidcom, worry etched into its lines. "Yes, Colonel. Are you all right? It's been nearly half an hour since you reported possible sighting of a ship in the trees and landed." He had given her specific instructions to check in every 15 minutes.

"I'm fine, sir." She collected herself visibly before going on. "The ship was Buck's starfighter."

" _Was_?" The admiral picked up on her unintentional emphasis on the past tense.

"Was. It crashed. Half the roof is ripped off. Between that and hitting a few trees, it's nearly destroyed." If Buck had been in space instead of hopefully low in the atmosphere when that hull breach happened, he would have been left in the same condition as the men aboard the ship the two of them had so recently explored. "Buck's not there," she continued. "I looked around the woods for several minutes trying to find him."

"No sign of him at all?"

She took another deep breath. "There is considerable blood inside the starfighter." A frightening amount of blood. "His tracks lead out with the blood trail right with him. He stopped at a large rock, and apparently the bleeding was controlled there. There were some bloody leaves and some extra leaves and moss like he'd picked up that to use as packing. I couldn't find any blood after that, but I did find another set of tracks in that same clearing. I backtrailed those and came to Hawk's ship about a hundred meters away. It had crashed, too, but it isn't ripped apart like the starfighter. It isn't flyable, but it could be repaired. He came up into the clearing. It looked like Buck went to meet him, then they both walked to the rock where the blood had ended. Then the two of them apparently walked off together. I tracked them as far as I could before I lost the tracks on hard ground."

The admiral was frowning in thought and concern. "They walked off _together_?"

"Definitely. The tracks didn't look like one chasing the other. It looked like they joined up." She sighed. "But all of the blood, that was from inside the starfighter and along Buck's trail at first. Not along Hawk's."

"But Buck was walking," the admiral pointed out.

"Yes. It looked like he was definitely on his feet as far as I could follow." Which hadn't been far. Her worried fingers dribbled on the arm rest of her seat.

"Maybe the blood wasn't his."

"Who else could it be? We definitely have a trail from him and one from Hawk; who else could have been with them? And only one set of tracks, his, leading away from his starfighter." She reached for the controls, unable to sit here merely talking any longer. "I'm going to fly along the hills, staying low, and see if I can pick up anything at all. Maybe I'll cross their trail again."

"Maybe. Keep in touch, Colonel."

"I will." She started the starfighter up and lifted off, wasting a minute to fly back over Buck's wrecked craft and analyze it again. It was utterly ripped apart. Had he been ripped apart, too? Yet he had walked away from this crash. He alone, nobody else beside him, and the blood had followed right beside his footprints at first. Then all trace of it had vanished, just as he had himself moments later.

Eyes and scanners on full alert, she flew low, searching for any clue. She couldn't help remembering his parting shot on the bridge, when he had stopped at the lift doors and turned back to protest that she hadn't told him to be careful. She recalled the familiar laughing light in his eyes as she objected that telling him never did any good.

This man. She cared about him so deeply that it frightened her, so deeply that at times, she had to back away from the flame, afraid of getting burned. Still, she wished she had told him to be careful. But if he ever started listening meekly to her and just obeying, he wouldn't have still been Buck.

Eyes glued to the terrain unfolding below, she muttered to the empty space beside her just as she had on one occasion over a year ago. "Buck, don't you dare get yourself killed. Don't you dare."

/

"There's something on this mountain. I'm going in." Wilma found a relatively level place to land, then quickly climbed toward that ledge she had seen. She hadn't gotten a full view of it, but there had been a glimpse of blue, the same blue as Buck's old jacket with the silver wings that he loved so much.

She made her way up the trail, and then she broke into a full sprint for the last several feet. "Buck!"

He and Hawk lay motionless on the ledge, Buck on top, locked together as if they had mutually collapsed. She dropped to her knees, reaching urgently for his shoulder and giving it a shake. He was warm, still alive, but there was no response. "Buck!"

She rolled him over, giving Hawk a wary look, but the bird man seemed as completely unconscious as Buck was. Buck had a few bruises visible, and his face was drawn, but she couldn't see any source for that massive amount of blood loss back at the starfighter. She took his pulse, which was strong, then ran her hands over his torso and all his limbs. She unzipped his jacket to survey both shoulders.

Nothing. He looked plenty banged up and like he had been through an ordeal, but the critical wound she had feared was nowhere to be found. She took his pulse again and tried shaking his shoulder and calling him once more. No response. She took a moment to check Hawk, finding a pulse in a not far from human location. She had no idea what his rate should be, but the heartbeat, like Buck's, felt strong.

Wilma had picked up the first aid kit as she left her starfighter. Now, she opened it and fished through it for a hypo. She dialed up a dose of stimulant. She disliked drugging him; his 20th-century body chemistry was just slightly different, and he didn't always react to things entirely according to the instructions on the kit. Still, she was going to have trouble getting them from this mountainous location down to the starfighter without having Buck on his feet and mobile to help her with Hawk. No point calling for reinforcements from Searcher if she could wake him up. She couldn't seem to find anything majorly wrong with him, just the unexplained unconsciousness. She pressed the needle against his arm.

Buck jumped, responding at once, apparently waking up in the middle of the same fight he and Hawk had simultaneously gone down while having. He lashed out blindly, sharply, and she dodged, gripping his shoulder. "Buck! Easy, Buck. It's me."

He blinked against the sunlight, his eyes slowly focusing. "Wilma?"

"Yes. I'm here. I found you. Lie still a minute and let that shot take full effect."

Characteristically and reassuringly, he disobeyed, pushing himself up to a sitting position. "Hawk!"

"He's right here. It looked like you both collapsed together in the middle of a fight."

Buck had seen the bird man by then. He reached out to check Hawk's pulse himself.

"He seems fine, as far as I can tell. Just unconscious. Buck, are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." He looked around the mountainside as if trying and failing to find somebody watching them.

"Back at your starfighter, there was all that blood."

His attention returned fully to her in a rush. "It wasn't mine. You found that?"

"Yes. I thought. . ." She trailed off, and he grasped her hands, squeezing them.

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault. That crash had to be Hawk's doing by ripping your ship open. But who else was with you, Buck?"

He looked back over at Hawk. "His mate. I kidnapped her to make him come out into the open." His face was grim.

Wilma pieced the situation together at once. "He attacked you and wound up tearing her up when he went after your starfighter."

"Right. But I was the one who had put her there."

It was her turn to squeeze his hands. "Hawk must have known you had her if he was following you, Buck. He knew she was in the fighter before he hulled it. But there was only one set of tracks going away from the crash. You carried her?"

He nodded. "She was badly injured. I managed to get her out of the ship, but she'd already lost so much before we could get the bleeding stopped. We declared a truce while we took turns carrying her to a healer." He reached out to touch Hawk's motionless shoulder. "She died anyway." He sighed, looking around the mountain. "He offered to let me just walk away, said he wouldn't kill me because I tried to help. I wanted to take him up on it, Wilma. How I wanted to take him up on it. He isn't a bad man."

"You couldn't, though. So that's why you fought."

His eyes were still regretful. "I had a responsibility. It was my job to find him. In a way, I wish I'd failed."

"Buck." She gave his shoulder a squeeze. There wasn't really anything else she could say; she could feel the admiration and respect in him. Clearly, against all odds, he and Hawk had bonded during their journey, and once Buck regarded someone as a friend, they held that position forever. He was the most loyal person she had ever met. "So you just fought each other to a standstill? Odd that you both hit the limit at the same time, though."

"That was probably the old one."

"The old one?"

"Long story." He looked at Hawk's still body, then the trail. "You have a starfighter down there?"

"Yes. Think you can get up now?" She stood and offered him an arm, and he didn't protest taking it.

Once he was successfully back on his feet, he bent down. "I'll take him."

"I'll help you," she insisted. "I know you're hurt some, even if you're determined not to show it." He grinned. Between them, they lifted Hawk up and slowly, carefully maneuvered the trail.

Once in the starfighter, Wilma looked around for something to tie Hawk with. Buck shook his head. "I'll watch him, Wilma. He won't give us any more trouble. He's lost everything already, just like I did once." He sat down in the back seat across from Hawk.

Wilma bent to give him a hug. "You moved on to rebuild. You're one of us now, Buck. You're like family to me." All that and more.

He smiled. "Sorry for worrying you."

"Forget about it. Just don't do it again, okay?"

For the first time since he woke up on the hill, she saw the familiar spark in his eyes. "How well do you know me?"

She gave him a quick kiss, forcing herself not to let it go too far, and then made sure he had a laser set on stun. She then sat down in the pilot's seat. There were two missed messages on the vidcom, and she didn't have to guess the source. She turned it on. "Searcher, this is Colonel Deering. I have both of them."

"Is Buck all right?" the admiral asked.

"I'm fine, Admiral," Buck called.

"And you have Hawk, too? Excellent. Wonderful work, both of you."

"We're coming home. Deering out." Wilma switched off the vidcom. "Let's go, Buck."

He was studying Hawk again. "Do you think the Galactic Council might be willing to give him a chance to start over? He's not a bad man, Wilma."

Privately, she thought Hawk's chances at the Galactic Council were a foregone conclusion, but once Buck set his mind to something, you never knew. "I don't know, Buck. We'll have to see."

A new resolution launched in his eyes. "Yes. We'll have to see."


End file.
